Repealing gas tax would doom our highways, kill many road projects
I heard there is a proposition on the ballot to repeal SB1, which increases the gasoline tax. While I would agree this is a lot of money, the people don’t tell you the consequences of repealing the new tax.
Why don’t they pave the street in front of my house? Why don’t they widen Highway 99 to take care of all of the trucks? Why don’t they fix the roadside rest stops? It is called money, and that is where the gasoline tax comes in.
During the ’50s, we designed and built the interstate highway system. But those roads are approaching 70 years old, well beyond their design life of 50 years.
Repealing the new tax would leave less money available to maintain the roads and even less for new construction. As costs rise, it would mean even less work gets done. It would also eliminate money available for so called “matching funds” available to counties for their projects.
All said and done, the state cannot afford to lose the funds available under SB 1 and still maintain a workable highway system.
Otis H. Hutchinson, Merced
This story was originally published May 15, 2018 at 3:52 PM with the headline "Repealing gas tax would doom our highways, kill many road projects."